The reason why I am moving to Joomla

I have had an interesting experience trying to get this blog online for the last 2 years. Originally I was debating whether to use Joomla or WordPress, but I made my decision. In most cases, you more likely associate blogs with WordPress as I have and this blog was using it. It's logical to think every blog uses WordPress, but this popular platform is changing fast!

Joomla vs WordPress

I know, not another Joomla vs WordPress article! I promise you this won't be another article comparing the two; I will leave that for another time. But with 13 years of Joomla experience and over 8 with WordPress, I am finding myself reverting back. When you decide to create a blog, you really only had one logical choice. Joomla, on the other hand, was built for more robust websites, although you can blog with it. If you want to compare both platforms for blogging, you cannot argue that WordPress is king. With Joomla, you do not have a built-in commenting system, whereas WordPress does. Joomla also does not have a massive selection of plugins made only for blogging, WordPress does.

Why Am I Moving to Joomla?

You are thinking why is he moving to Joomla if he just stated that WordPress is the better blogging choice? A fair question, but it comes down to the changes and direct Matt Mullenweg is taking it. Most users are not aware of what is happening, but developers do. Basically, the release of WordPress 5 now includes the very controversial Block Editor (Gutenberg) as your official post editor. That was phase 1, and there are more phases of WordPress coming. Say goodbye to widgets, sidebars, and later will be headers, footers, and more.

In a nutshell, WordPress is no longer going to be the blogging platform that you've become accustomed to. My prediction based on what their development team is doing and reading tons of articles, WordPress will transform into a page building product. Possibly as a service at some point.

What I know and from what I see, it does not fit in with my own website needs; my blog is one of them. Nor do I fully agree where WordPress is going.

Many people are realizing that they may need to make changes as well. Some people will stay, some people will switch to a different CMS, while others will be checking out a new fork of WordPress called ClassicPress. You may want to check that out.

Can Joomla Be Used for a Blog?

A quick answer to that question is yes. The only one thing that it does not offer is a built-in comment system. However, this is easily remedied with a comment extension from a third party source. There are a few available, some good, some not so good.

Everything you need in a blogging website, Joomla can do, and in some cases, even better. It's not perfect, so there are pro's and con's to it, just like there are with WordPress.

By the way, you are reading this blog article on a website running on Joomla!

Within the last few years, Joomla has advanced a lot. Long before version 3.x, I would say definitely not for blogging, but now there is no reason it cannot be used for it. In fact, Joomla version 4 is in beta and looking amazing. It's practically a new CMS from the ground up and the admin area is very different but a little more simplified. Unlike the WordPress Gutenberg block editor, content creation in Joomla is an absolute dream.

Welcome to Joomla!

To make a long story short, I converted my new blog site from WordPress to Joomla. Future plans with this site are to offer some themes and templates, but Joomla will be a better solution for that. Ultimately, I'm escaping the block editor and other changes WordPress will be going through. Again, they may work for others, but my needs require a better solution. For myself, I am very familiar with it, so it becomes an easy transition.

...and yes, I will be writing a series that does give an experienced, unbiased, and honest comparison between WordPress vs Joomla!